Microsoft has released a list of 800 applications that should run properly on its new Windows Vista operating system. As expected, virtually all of Microsoft's own offerings are on the list - including the latest Office 2007 products. Also included are a host of business and security applications from vendors ranging from Intuit to Trend Micro. And desktop applications from Google, which ramped up its rivalry with Microsoft earlier this week with the introduction of online business applications, made the cut. However, noticeable by their absence are applications from a number of the world's biggest software companies, including Adobe Systems, IBM, and Symantec.

Erm, you do know what is *certified* and what is *supported* are two different things entirely?

Let's compare apples to apples here -- that list you have is not a list of programs certified for compliance by Gentoo, and the linked list specifically notes that it is not a comprehensive list of all the programs that work in Vista.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding (it wouldn't be the first time). My impression was that a certified application is known to work, whereas a supported application is guaranteed to work (for paying customers).

The package count I calculated only includes those for which the Gentoo community has provided source trees, patches, and build scripts that have no known issues for the target architecture. If there are known issues for more fine-grained environments, including those pertaining to dependencies, configurations, etc., then the build script is known to detect these conditions and inform the user. Of course, there are occasions where new issues are reported after a package revision is marked stable. The package maintainer then takes steps to either correct the problem, detect the conditions that lead to the problem, or remove the package's stable keyword for that architecture.

I've worked in software test positions for a large proprietary software vendor that does massive amounts of pre-release testing in order to certify that everything works as it should. No matter how much you test, how much code coverage you attain with these tests, and how many environments, stress levels, and concurrency models you exercise, things always blow up in the field. The best you can do is make a concerted effort to limit how many flaws escape into the field and provide prompt fixes when flaws are inevitable reported by users.

The fact of the matter is that Microsoft usually can't provide fixes when third-party software blows up. The best they can do is make a concerted effort to limit how often this happens. In this sense, Microsoft's certification falls short of the kind of support provided by commercial Linux vendors. As for Gentoo, support is provided on a best-effort basis. There is no guarantee, but at least they have the resources necessary to fix problems, even if they reside in upstream packages.

But on the other hand, I realize from your recent posts that you don't believe in the this sort of development model, and that Windows is one of the few remaining platforms that you find morally justifiable. I don't pretend to understand this position, but I adamantly support anyone's right to use the software they find most appropriate.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding (it wouldn't be the first time). My impression was that a certified application is known to work, whereas a supported application is guaranteed to work (for paying customers).

Ah, there's the misunderstanding. It's my understanding that supported applications are applications that are known to be able to run on Vista, while certified applications are those that MS has given its 'stamp of approval' -- something that Microsoft guarantees will run on Vista.

I can't reply to myself for some reason, and it's past my edit time...

I just wanted to clarify my calculation and my statements as I have realized they aren't entirely consistent. I didn't check these packages to verify if they are indeed marked stable, as opposed to testing or unstable. I corrected my methods to take this into account.

Once again, disregarding development tools and library packages, only considering packages marked stable on x86 (which is Vista's most supported platform), and only counting each package once even if multiple versions of that package are marked stable, I count 4734 packages.

Once again, disregarding development tools and library packages, only considering packages marked stable on x86 (which is Vista's most supported platform), and only counting each package once even if multiple versions of that package are marked stable, I count 4734 packages.

Packages != Applications.

Firstly, many of those packages will be things that are part of the base system (ie. Bash, X, text editors, utilities, etc).
Secondly, many apps are made up of more than one package. OpenOffice is about 5 packages, GIMP is 2, etc.